Unexpected Fresh Year Fresh Face revelation: make-up was a reaction to girl-on-girl bullying as much as it was to make myself attractive to men.

It’s been eight days (one week back at work) without the routine of putting on make-up. I’ve enjoyed the convenience, and the time saved, but throughout the past week I’ve found myself inexplicably having unpleasant flashbacks to my elementary/middle school years.

I wasn’t a popular girl. My family was not involved in our small farming community. When I was in grade three my stepfather had divorced his first wife and shortly thereafter brought my mother, me and my two siblings to live on the farm where he had lived all his life. That was very odd behaviour at the time (mid-seventies); and our social isolation, my mother’s alcoholism and morbid obesity didn’t help. We stood apart: not in a good way.

Then, at age 14, I got glasses, further sealing my fate as an outcast. I was too smart, I got straight-As (a social life-killer then as it is now). I preferred reading to riding horses or joining 4-H or figure skating, activities the other kids did regularly.

There were a lot of mean comments about my mom’s weight, which were designed to also imply that I too was a fat ugly cow, or at least destined to be one (I’ve never been overweight, and my mom was in fact quite attractive). I was teased a lot, and excluded from social activities.

Meantime, one of my mom’s main hobbies for a while was trying to sell cosmetics to friends and neighbours. There was a lot of make-up around, and I was schooled in how to apply it from an early age. This was the seventies, I had a lot of blue eyeshadow in those days, and I tried to feather my hair like Farrah Fawcett’s.

All to no avail really. Not that I cold parse it out at the time, but make-up couldn’t make me more popular, couldn’t make the girls stop teasing and make them invite me to their parties. Even if boys found me attractive, it wasn’t in their best interests to make it known, or they could face social ostracization too.

Make-up nevertheless became a way of pretending I fit in, that I really was attractive. Pretty. Worthy. When I finally escaped the confines of my family of origin and the town where I grew up (to which I’ve never returned, unsurprisingly) the masques of femininity followed, and have carried on well into my adult life. I’m not alone, of course. My story isn’t all that unique. That’s why this poem “Pretty” by Katie Makkai makes me tear up every time:

“This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.”

Upon reflection, I’m not surprised that a prolonged period of going without make-up has led to the resurfacing of some uncomfortable memories. At this point in life those deep-seated assumptions are ready to be uprooted. I have a feeling I’ve uncovered more than just a fresh face.